I assume the question refers to what I understand as "the classics" (Latin and ancient Greek), although I don't really consider them "ancient" per se, reserving this definition for older languages like Sanskrit, or Sumerian and Akkadian.

I never formally studied Latin, but it has such an influence on modern European languages that I think I have acquired a certain degree of knowledge through studying French, German, Russian and Spanish as well as my native English.

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Latin (6 years) and ancient Greek (5 years) in secondary school.
They shaped my brain, were priceless when studying German and Russian, and are often useful in my profession.

My experience was the other way round. When I decided to study Russian and German, I found they kept telling me that "it's just like in Latin or Greek" when explaining the grammar declensions, which always left me slightly miffed as I had no idea what they meant! I eventually acquired any knowledge I may have of the workings of the calssics through studying modern languages.

In fact, I had never heard of the notion of "verb tenses" or any grammar systems at all until I went to secondary school and was like a fish out of water for the first year or so until I got the hang of it. I'd like to study Latin some day if I have the time - apparently it's undergoing a bit of a revival now and some people are actually speaking it - like the mysterious baddies in sci-fi series Fringe who use it as a sort of code.

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And I don't regret it at all. In my opinion, Greek and Latin are totally overrated.
Knowing French, Italian and Spanish, I tend to have less problems with understanding certain Latin words than people who actually learnt Latin for years at school but forgot everything about it because they never used it again.
If I had the time, I'd much rather learn another language like Russian, a Scandinavian language or Dutch.

[Edited at 2011-11-02 09:18 GMT]

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Several years of Latin and an O'level in it (a prerequisite for taking a degree in Hispanic Studies back in the day) helped me a great deal with the Latin-rooted languages I went on to study. And this grounding still helps me understand a lot about these languages that I use on a daily basis.

I also studied Anglosaxon and Middle English as part of my Linguistics and History of Language course at University, and found it fascinating. I was taught partly by a native speaker of modern Icelandic, and by a researcher of modern English local dialects which fed my passion for the quirks and varieties of my own native language. My Spanish degree course also filled in the middle between Latin and modern Spanish with a course in Spanish philology, also adding insights into the varieties of modern Spanish.

I'm only sorry that I'm the first generation of my father's family not to learn Welsh as a first language...

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